


who am I, behind the mask?

by Kriber, muggle95



Series: Muggle's DCMK Fics [13]
Category: Magic Kaito, 名探偵コナン | Detective Conan | Case Closed
Genre: Akako being cryptic, Angst, But also, Canon-Typical Violence, Existential Crisis, Fridge Horror, Friendship, Gen, Magical Memory Loss, More bittersweet, POV Kuroba Kaito | Kaitou Kid, Pandora (Magic Kaito), Shinichi has good friends, Shinichi is still a murder-magnet after all, Supernatural Elements, Unexpected Side Effects, aka speaking in riddles, characters being forgotten, friendship centric, happy-ish ending, like wiped from existence forgotten, of the offscreen-murder variety, or perhaps its an, specifically of aptx, this is nowhere near as sad as muggle's Chasing Shadows but it's still got a bit of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:00:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25584814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kriber/pseuds/Kriber, https://archiveofourown.org/users/muggle95/pseuds/muggle95
Summary: After a perfectly normal heist, Kaito meets one of his rivals on the roof. Except Tantei-kun isn't trying to arrest him. He's... crying?See end notes for warnings
Relationships: Kudou Shinichi | Edogawa Conan & Kuroba Kaito | Kaitou Kid
Series: Muggle's DCMK Fics [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1901863
Comments: 22
Kudos: 177
Collections: kaishinbigbang 2020





	who am I, behind the mask?

**Author's Note:**

>   
> illustrated and written for the KaiShin reverse bang 2020  
> artist: Kriber  
> author: Muggle95  
> 
> 
> rated G+ for existential crisis
> 
> betas not credited because i didn't actually fix anything they told me to and it shouldn't reflect on them that I haven't ^^;

Kaito scanned the crowd, from his place among the officers. Mere minutes before the heist was due to start, and of his usual rivals, only inspector Nakamori appeared to be present, which wasn't a huge accomplishment. Nakamori led the task force, he would only miss a heist if he was seriously ill. But none of the detectives were here. Hakuba was back in England, so Kaito might have been more surprised if his annoying classmate had shown up, but he was here to steal something from old man Suzuki, and he had been so sure...

Aha! There was Mouri-loudmouth, loudly boasting to Nakamori and anyone who would listen about how easily he would catch Kid - which was laughable, really. The man was shockingly easy to fool, for a detective, and even easier to avoid.

But if Mouri was here, then a certain little terror in glasses must be too. Kaito tried to look around, to see where his littlest detective was - it was only smart to be aware of the biggest threats in the room were - but he couldn't spot his Tantei-kun.

Oh well. He'd just have to be extra-careful tonight, and stay on alert for high speed soccer balls.

But the heist went almost too smoothly. Kaito was only reduced to his plan C twice, and didn't run out of plans and have to frantically improvise like he often would with a rival present. (Kaito hated to admit it but that _challenge_ made heists so much more fun. The adrenaline rush of escaping one of his detectives was better than anything, better even than the drop before his glider fully opened every time he jumped off a building.)

Tonight, he easily dodged the police force, setting up enough chaos to keep them busy, and slipped out of the display hall, then rushed up three flights of stairs, and paused at the door to the roof. He listened, momentarily, to assess if Nakamori had gotten clever enough to plant officers on the roof to impede his escape.  
He didn't hear the rustling of uniforms as someone fidgeted, nor the murmuring of officers thinking they still had time before they had to watch for him, but he did hear... sniffling?

Kaito cracked the door open, silently, slowly, keeping his eyes and ears wide open. No one jumped at him, nothing fell on him, or tangled around his feet, and the roof appeared empty as the door swung slowly wider. At the halfway point, Kaito deemed it safe enough, and stepped quickly through the door, letting it snap closed behind him.

The sniffling - muffled sobs, he now realized, hitched when the latch, clicked, but they didn't stop. The source, a familiar small figure he could now see, didn't even turn to look at him.

Well that explained Tantei-kun's absence downstairs, but what could possibly be so wrong? It wasn't like Tantei-kun to pass up an opportunity to make his life difficult.

Shoving aside the possibility that this was a trap, Kaito tucked tonight's prize - a large, brilliant cut, yellow sapphire, more securely away into one of his pockets. He could check it later. He stepped forward until he was standing on the edge of the roof, hardly a meter away from the crying child, who had his legs hanging over the edge. That would have been a far more alarming prospect if Kaito didn't know there was a balcony for tourists little more than two meters down. If the boy fell - and Kaito had fallen for it once, but this time he wasn't wearing a backpack or anything that could hide a surprise parachute - he was in for a broken leg at worst. And honestly, Tantei-kun looked stable where he was... physically anyway.

Tantei-kun glanced sideways at Kaito, at Kid, at _his_ _rival_ , and glanced away just as quickly. He didn't make any sounds or motions toward impeding Kid.

Every single one of Kaito's instincts was screaming at him that something was wrong. But since it wasn't an impending-arrest sort of wrong, Kaito crouched down next to his rival. He gazed out over the cityscape, not wanting to upset Tantei-kun more with the impression of staring at him.

Tantei-kun didn't seem to react to his presence. From this angle, Kaito could see that his usual glasses were missing. It made his face look completely different somehow.

Against his better judgment, Kaito shuffled closer and sat down on the edge next to his rival. He wasn't nearly as mobile without his feet under him, but in an emergency, he probably had the leg strength to lunge off the edge and clear the balcony, or failing that, at least the dexterity to redirect his downward momentum into somersaulting over the railing in order to get far enough clear to bring out his glider. Somehow he didn't think that would be necessary, but it never hurt to have a backup plan or twelve.

Kaito found it increasingly difficult to tear his concerned glances away from his rival, who still seemed to be ignoring him. Finally, the silence was too much.  
“Tantei-kun?” he asked, as gently as possible.

The boy's head turned to stare at him so fast, Kaito was honestly surprised his neck didn't crack.

“You- you can...?” Tantei-kun quickly scrubbed his face, failing to erase the majority of the tear tracks, and turned his entire body to stare at Kaito with wide, hopeful eyes. “Kid?” he asked tremulously, omitting any suffix.

“What's wrong?” Kaito prodded, feeling entirely out of his depth. He couldn't see any sign of injury, and Detective Mouri hadn't given any hint that anything was wrong...

A complicated emotion, fear and frustration, and maybe something else, passed over Tantei-kun's face as he opened his mouth to speak. “I... Everyone's...” He fumbled for the right words, and Kaito realized he had never heard his rival say anything less than certain before tonight. “What am I, to you?” he finally asked.

Kaito wasn't sure where that question was supposed to lead. “You're my littlest rival,” he answered honestly. “One of the fiercest, with a knack for showing up to my most interesting heists, and all the ones that weren't mine.” Because Tantei-kun always seemed to show up to the heists imposters held, and usually managed to see the imposter arrested for something worse: often murder, though Kaito didn't like to think about that bit. He also had strong suspicions about his littlest rival and his ever-absent 'cousin,' but now didn't seem to be the time to bring that up. “Why?”

“Everyone... The most honest people I know - and everyone else - have all been acting like I don't exist. Like I've _never_ existed!” Tantei-kun finally managed to spit out.

Kaito stared at him, bafflement momentarily winning out over concern. “Excuse me?”

“Kobayashi-sensei didn’t call my name during role, and Ayumi-chan asked about the empty desk, and whether they were getting a transfer student _while I was sitting there.”_ Tantei-kun's voice broke, and he tilted his head back, swallowing hard against tears that shone in his eyes. Kaito thought he saw a flash of red in his rival's eyes, but when he tried to focus on it, it was already gone. “Ayumi-chan doesn’t know _how_ to lie, and Sensei is too kind to have held onto a joke like that once I started protesting,” he elaborated, in case Kaito didn't know them, though he was vaguely familiar with both parties. “And the people here too! I was fast enough to get into the car with Kogoro-ojiisan to come here, and the officers that don't know me are usually all condescending and trying to keep me out of the way for the heists but no one so much as glanced my direction tonight! Even when I deliberately bumped into them!”

Kaito had to take a moment to process that. The idea of being completely unseen, unheard, forgotten by the people around him was horrifying. He was a magician, he _thrived_ on the ability to direct and redirect people’s attention.

“So why are you haunting me, little ghostie?” Kaito asked, trying to hold the tatters of his poker face in place and project a harmless good humor. If you don't acknowledge the horror it can't hurt you, right?

“I don't _think_ I'm dead!” Tantei-kun protested, with a scowl and a hint of his usual fire. Good, Kaito's impression of humor hadn't been a miscalculation. “It wasn't 'hey, where's Conan-kun, does anyone know if he's okay?' it was 'hey are we getting a transfer student soon? We've had an empty seat here for _months_.'”

Kaito would have been fumbling for something else to say, perhaps to demand proof, or ask why he could see Tantei-kun when no one else could, but even if Jii's sudden warning in the comm in his ear hadn't interrupted, the rumble of feet stampeding up the stairs would have. Rather than lunging off the building, as he'd initially planned, Kaito sprang to his feet, dropping a smoke bomb to cover his change back into his initial disguise as an officer, and to cover his motion towards the door. He didn't look back at Tantei-kun, but it sounded like his rival was also scrambling to his feet

Kaito flattened himself along the wall, just out of range of where the door would slam into it, with hardly a second to spare before the door indeed slammed open, bouncing off the wall next to him. Kaito surged forward with the crowd of officers as though he had been with them the whole time. First rule of infiltration: act like you belong.  
He stumbled to a halt in the middle of the roof, with the rest of the officers, as someone in front loudly observed, “there's no one on the roof. Either Kid didn't come this way, or he's long gone.”

Kaito stared disbelievingly at Tantei-kun, standing straight ahead, arms crossed, glaring venomously at them. “He's disguised among you, _idiots_ ,” Tantei-kun sneered, harsher than he'd ever been to Kid. Kaito blinked in surprise at the intensity, but no one so much as glanced around at the statement.

Kaito hadn't thought of any alternative explanation for Tantei-kun's claims, but the evidence was still jarring. “What about the child right there?” he asked, pointing at Tantei-kun. He ignored his rival's grumbled cursing in return. No one that small would be suspected of being Kid, and for good reason: Kid was quite clearly adult sized.

“The thief's code name is _Kid_. In English,” another officer corrected him. He stepped forward, and Kaito followed. The officer stopped right next to Conan, and squinted at a scuff on the concrete. It was from Kaito's boots, where he had squatted near Tantei-kun before moving to sit down. “It looks like he went this direction, though,” the officer mused, oblivious to Tantei-kun waving in his face, grabbing his arm to tug on it, and shouting at him with increasing volume. Kaito barely held onto his poker face when Tantei-kun got suddenly loud, but the officer didn't even blink. “Good eye, newbie. Can you spot his glider too, or is he out of sight?“

Kaito obediently squinted into the night, scanning for hints of his _less friendly_ fans under the guise of looking for Kid. Nothing. At least he didn’t have to deal with _that_ complication. “I can’t spot him,” he reported honestly. He wasn’t looking down at himself after all.

The officer clapped him on the shoulder. “Not your fault. We should go report to the Inspector that Kid-san has escaped once again.”

“Yeah. Um. Yes, we should,” Kaito agreed, already plotting six different ways to escape from the mob before they got back to heavily populated areas.

He turned hesitantly to follow the officers back into the building, eyes lingering on Tantei-kun’s anguished face.

Before Kaito could fully turn away, Tantei-kun darted forward and slipped a small hand into his own. “You’re the only one who can see me,” Tantei-kun explained before Kaito could ask, lacking all his usual bravado. “I don’t... I don’t want to be alone again.” Kaito just nodded, holding eye contact, not wanting to draw attention by holding an apparently one-sided conversation. The sheer relief on Tantei-kun’s face when Kaito didn’t pull away was heartbreaking. Kaito wasn’t sure how he intended to slip away now. He wasn’t sure he _could_ abandon his rival in his time of need.

They stayed with the crowd of officers most of the way back to the display room the jewel had been held in, and Kaito pulled Tantei-kun away into the shadows at the last minute. They circled around through the hallways, and paused just outside another door to the display room. They could see the officers reporting to Nakamori, but there was no sign of anyone else, not even Tantei-kun's erratic guardian.

Kaito tried to melt away, into the shadows again, and didn’t resist when Tantei-kun followed. If Jii didn’t protest the detective’s presence, proving his story false, Kaito might let him follow him all the way home. It grated on his instincts, to reveal his identity to a detective like this, but he couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

Two flights of stairs and a change into gray street clothes later, they got to the window Kaito had prepared as a backup escape route, with a multi-tone gray rope to rappel down that blended in to the concrete side of the building. Kaito glanced down at Tantei-kun. He only had one safety harness, and forty stories was a lot more dangerous a fall than a couple meters.

“How much do you trust your grip strength?” Kaito asked. He was certain he could hold his legs up in a reasonable impression of a seat for long enough to get to the bottom, even with a passenger, and he trusted Tantei-kun not to do something stupid like jump off, but he was hoping for at least one backup plan for safety. He slipped on the harness with a practiced efficiency, and locked himself onto the rope.

“Enough,” Tantei-kun answered, determination burning in his eyes. Kaito could read in his face that Tantei-kun easily understood what the problem was.

Kaito nodded. That was all they had, it would have to be enough. He sat on the windowsill and helped Tantei-kun up onto his lap, guiding small hands to where the straps of the harness went around his shoulders for comfort. “I’ll try not to make it necessary, but hold on tight,” he cautioned.

Tantei-kun nodded, following instructions with no hesitation, and Kaito was struck by how much faith his rival had in him. Now he just had to live up to that. Kaito eased himself all the way out the window, and braced his legs firmly against the wall, keeping his torso, and his rival’s, far enough away that they wouldn’t scrape themselves up on the concrete. This was the proper position for rappelling, but it was even more important tonight, so Kaito wouldn’t let Tantei-kun drop.

He cautiously let them down the building, balancing speed with safety, and straining to keep his legs at a perfect 90 degrees from his body, to keep Tantei-kun stable.  
He slowed to a stop about five meters above the ground, and then slowly inched down until they were within a meter of sitting on the ground. “I’m going to let you down now,” he warned, and Tantei-kun nodded, tightening already-bloodless fingers around the harness. Kaito let his legs down, slowly. Oooh his legs were going to be sore tomorrow.

Even when his feet touched the ground, he felt unsteady from exertion, so he let his weight rest on the rope for a moment while he helped Tantei-kun all the way down. When he felt stable enough not to embarrass himself, Kaito untied himself, letting the rope swing back to disappear against the side of the building, and stashing the harness in the thin pouch on his back, under his sweatshirt, that also contained his glider. He or Jii would come back for the rope in a couple of days, and if it had disappeared in the meantime, well, that was the price of pulling a heist.

Kaito led the way to the front of the building in time to see Detective Mouri and his daughter driving away. Tantei-kun barely sighed at the further evidence that they had forgotten him. The pair disappeared back into the shadows, Kaito leading the way to a less identifiable point. He activated his comm to Jii. “Hey. I went out the side. Pick me up at the third arranged meeting point?”

He ignored Jii’s attempt at questions, and smiled tightly when Jii quit trying to ask why he had lingered on the roof, or why he hadn’t used his glider, and just promised to be there shortly.

Kaito offered his hand to Tantei-kun, who took it eagerly. He led the way to a quiet alley, several blocks away.“My name’s not actually Edogawa Conan,” Tantei-kun admitted as they walked. Kaito glanced at him, only raising an eyebrow. He was surprised that Tantei-kun would say something, but not at the content. He already had his suspicions. “I’m actually Kudou Shinichi. I haven’t figured out if people have forgotten _me_ too, the way they’ve forgotten Conan. I’m... I’m a little scared to find out, actually.”

“I thought so,” Kaito admitted after a moment, addressing the reveal, more than the emotional vulnerability. He wasn’t sure anything he could say would help. But Tantei-kun had always taken it so personally when Kaito had showed up as Kudou, and Kudou was _literally_ never present to catch him out, for all that his friends constantly talked about him as though he were just around the corner.

Tantei-kun froze, staring at him. Kaito had to tug on their joined hands to keep moving. They were near the mouth of an alley, approaching a busier street now, the best way to blend in was to stay in motion.

“How?” Tantei-kun asked, an edge of fear to his voice. “ _How_ did you know?”

Kaito shrugged. How to explain he had a witch in his class... “I’ve seen stranger happenings,” he decided on, ignoring Tantei-kun’s skeptical glance. “And you seemed to have closer ties to him than anyone.”

Tantei-kun seemed dissatisfied by that answer, but lapsed into a contemplative silence.

Kaito was torn. On one hand, he could introduce himself in the meantime. rewarding one secret identity with another. On the other, there was the slightest chance that Tantei-kun and everyone else were trying to set him up, and Jii would catch him at it... But even Kaito couldn’t fake that level of distress, and the officer Tantei-kun had shouted at hadn’t shown _any_ tells.

“Kuroba Kaito,” he muttered, before he could overthink it further. Tantei-kun’s eyes snapped to his face. “My father was the original Kid.” He hesitated, watching the realization sink in to Tantei-kun’s wide eyes. “I’m trying to draw out his murderers.” That was a motivation a detective should appreciate.

“Kuroba Toichi-san,” Tantei-kun realized. Kaito flinched at a fresh wave of grief, but nodded. Emotions didn’t make sense! _He_ had brought up his father first, and it had been fine. “Doito Katsuki’s favorite magician,” Tantei-kun remembered. It was a pseudonym Kaito had used exactly once, but the anagram remained obvious. Tantei-kun offered up a sympathetic smile. “I’ll do everything in my power to help,” he promised, even more of his usual fire burning in his eyes. It was somehow reassuring.

“Thank you,” Kaito breathed. He pulled them both into the alley that was their destination, and settled into the shadow of a dumpster. “Our ride should be here soon,” he said, forcing a normal tone. Tantei-kun nodded, and Kaito tried not to think about what would happen if Jii could see Tantei-kun too.

Jii showed up only a minute or two later, and Kaito covered his holding the car door wide with “distraction” chatting enthusiastically about how clumsy and easy to dodge the officers were. Tantei-kun got the hint and scrambled into the car before Kaito would have been holding it unrealistically long.

“For some reason, I thought you would have more of a problem with Mouri-san present,” Jii admitted, once they were driving in the direction of the Blue Parrot.

“Is Mouri-san the one they call the ‘Kid Killer?'" Kaito asked, deciding to test Jii’s memory of Tantei-kun. He hadn’t said anything about the detective’s presence, but...

Jii hesitated. “He must be,” Jii finally decided. “But the title doesn’t suit him, does it?”

“Not really. no,” Kaito agreed with a laugh that hopefully sounded convincing. Jii really had forgotten the apparent child who was riding in his car at this very moment. This entire situation was bizarre.

After Jii parked in the hidden garage under the Parrot, Kaito lingered in the open door of the car again, giving Tantei-kun time to climb out behind him. Jii continued not to comment on his presence, which was eerie enough when Kaito mostly expected it. He couldn't imagine how awful his rival felt, being practically unseen by all.

“Thanks, Jii-chan,” Kaito grinned, poker-face firmly in place to cover his concern and confusion at Tantei-kun's plight. Jii still didn't appear to suspect a thing. Nothing relevant anyway. “I'll swing by sometime this week,” he promised.

“Young master, really, I must ask what you were thinking going out the window. You got to the roof well ahead of pursuit. Is something wrong with the glider?” Jii pressed, as Kaito turned to leave.

Kaito glanced down at Tantei-kun, who was in step beside him, not hidden at all, then up at Jii. “I'm... it's fine,” he insisted. “Nothing's wrong with the glider. Everything's fine. I just stopped to think too long and found myself needing to blend in to the crowd.” Gah, he'd never expected to have to improvise cover stories to Jii. Even if this one _was_ built on half-truths.

Jii sighed, seeming to intuit the weight of the events on Kaito's mind. “Goodnight, young master,” he called, as Kaito reached the door that would deposit him into the alley behind the bar. Jii's tone said he was only dropping the subject for the night, but Kaito was satisfied with that extra time to come up with excuses.

“Later, Jii-chan,” Kaito called over his shoulder, and hurried out the door before Jii could ask more questions.

Alone in the alley, with one of his detectives, Kaito was struck with the weight of his decision to welcome Tantei-kun into his life. He certainly wasn't about to abandon his rival, but he was literally about lead a detective straight to his house. A detective following _Kid,_ not a classmate following Kaito. What was the world coming to?

“This way, Tantei-kun,” he said softly, leading the way, and the way his rival's eyes lit up with relief at being acknowledged was heartbreaking all over again. He didn't protest the small hand slipping back into his own.

Conversation was sparse for the rest of the walk home, and Kaito wasn’t quite sure how to break the silence even as he closed the door behind them.

Tantei-kun didn’t even hesitate to take off his terrifying sneakers, another display of trust. Kaito wasn’t sure what he had done to earn that trust, or if Tantei-kun was just desperate, but he swore to himself that he would be worthy of it. He gestured in the direction of the guest slippers. Personally, Kaito preferred his own, snugly fitting slippers, or to skip the guest slippers and just wear socks when visiting, because the loose, one-size-fits-all guest slippers were likely to cause him to twist his ankle if he was wearing them when he decided impromptu acrobatics were necessary, but he also knew how to be a good host, even if he occasionally pretended he didn’t to rile up Aoko or Hakuba.

“Thank you,” Tantei-kun murmured quietly, but with such sincerity that Kaito knew it wasn’t just about the slippers.

It took all of Kaito’s willpower not to turn the serious moment into a joke as he usually would. Admittedly, usually the serious moments were Aoko or her father trying to get Kaito to open up about his own feelings about - well - he wanted to open up on his own terms, if at all. Kaito wasn’t the best at engaging in serious moments, but he knew how to respect them when he wanted to. “You’re welcome.”

“No one else stays here?” Tantei-kun observed more than asked, thoroughly breaking the moment.

Kaito grinned fondly. Hakuba had made the same observation the first time he’d visited. “How do you figure, little detective?”

Tantei-kun rolled his eyes like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “There are shoes in different sizes here, but all except three pairs that are your size are neatly lined up and the floor around them is dusty. They haven’t been moved, or worn in a long time. Months, I’d wager. Plus you didn’t call out to anyone that you’d arrived.”

Hakuba had made almost the same comments, and Kaito hadn’t bothered to shuffle the shoes around after the fact, though he’d considered it, just to mess with Hakuba.

“Yep,” he agreed. “It’s just me here. Mom travels a lot. Welcome to my house,” he added, leading the way into the kitchen and starting a whirlwind tour of the house. He skipped the workshop and his mother’s bedroom; guests didn’t need to see those.

Kaito was uncomfortably aware, as he set up a futon in his room (Tantei-kun protested the idea of sleeping in the guest room, still reluctant to let Kaito out of his sight, and Kaito couldn’t find it in him to demand privacy at the cost of Tantei-kun’s peace of mind), that he still had the sapphire tucked into a pocket right below his ribcage, in a modified wrap with padding on the outside, just stiff enough that the outline of a gem would never show through. The extra padding was easily disguised by a baggy sweater, but not as well by his pajamas. And honestly, Kaito didn’t want to sleep with that fabric still wrapped around his torso. In order to minimize the visual impact, there wasn’t padding on the _inside_ of it which also meant that the stone occasionally dug into his side. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, especially if he tried to lay on it.

It took a bit of coaxing, but he eventually convinced Tantei-kun to take a shower, and that Kaito would still be waiting for him, when he was done. As soon as the water turned on, Kaito brought the sapphire out and held it up to the full moon shining outside his window. Nothing but distorted yellow light. He let himself silently into the workshop, stashed the sapphire in a locked cabinet, and sprinted back to his room. He locked the painting into place so Tantei-kun couldn’t open it overnight even if he figured out it covered a secret passage. He couldn’t open it unless he was teenage-size again, anyway. That would have to do.

Tantei-kun emerged from the bathroom not long after, wearing a borrowed shirt of Kaito’s that fell past his knees. Kaito was skinny enough that the shirt was only a little baggy around Tantei-kun’s tiny frame. Admittedly, that particular shirt was a bit tight on him now, but no wonder Aoko was always on his case to eat more, if he and a grade schooler could wear the same clothes.

Kaito grinned reassuringly at him. “Told you I’d still be here.”

Tantei-kun paused in toweling his hair to answer with a matching, if wry, grin. “You’re still here. You can see me.”

“I can see you,” Kaito affirmed. He directed Tantei-kun towards the futon, and took his own quick turn in the bathroom.

“Do I need to tuck you in?” Kaito asked, when he returned, habitually sarcastic, albeit gentler than he let himself be toward Hakuba. Tantei-kun was still sitting up on his futon, fidgeting anxiously, obviously waiting for him.

Tantei-kun snorted. “I'm good, thanks.” He wasn't quite meeting Kaito's eyes, almost as though he was ashamed of needing human connection. As if Kaito would judge him for that. Although... he understood the reluctance to show weakness in front of anyone, especially a rival.

Kaito turned off the light and slipped into his own bed, relieved to see the shadow that had been Tantei-kun also laying down.

“Good night, Tantei-kun,” Kaito murmured, not sure which name his rival currently preferred to be called.

“Good night, Kid-san,” his rival echoed.

The next morning was Sunday, so Kaito didn't have school. He woke up, slowly, and wondered for a moment whether the last night had been a strange dream. He rolled over and opened his eyes just enough to peer across the room. Not a dream after all. Tantei-kun was tangled in his blanket after an anxious, restless night.

At least they had all day to figure out what they were going to do about Tantei-kun’s plight.

Kaito sat upright, groaning at the midmorning sunlight.

Tantei-kun sat bolt upright at the slight noise, looking in Kaito’s direction with an expression that was a mix of hope and nerves. “Good morning,” he offered.

“Mmph. Mornings are never good,” Kaito grumped in return, surprising himself with his willingness to show vulnerability to a rival. Then again, Tantei-kun had already trusted him with so much more.

Tantei-kun visibly relaxed at the proof that Kaito could still hear him. “I bet you’d be less groggy if you hadn’t been up so late,” he teased, probably returning fire for Kaito's threat to tuck him in.

Kaito smirked back at him. “Would you rather I _hadn’t_ gone out adventuring last night?” If Kaito hadn’t held a heist, or if he wasn’t Kid at all and hadn’t developed his friendship-rivalry with some of his best detectives.

Tantei-kun’s eyes went wide, clearly understanding the subtext. “I was up late too,” he conceded. “Sometimes it’s worth it.”

They spent the next few hours exchanging the stories behind and around their secret identities. Tantei-kun talked about the shadowy organization, with alcohols for code names, that had poisoned him and how it had been safer not to connect his identities to each other, or to draw attention to the fact that he, as Kudou Shinichi, hadn’t actually died. He mentioned that he had a chemist friend working on an antidote, but so far they had only accomplished temporary antidotes, and that the change each way was agonizing.

Kaito didn’t ask if Tantei-kun had checked if his chemist friend was one of those people who had forgotten him, and Tantei-kun didn’t volunteer the information

Kaito matched his rival story for story. He described his discovery that his father had been the original Kaitou Kid, though he was deliberately vague about how he’d found the workshop. He explained about the snipers with code names who came to his heists, who believed in an impossible gem, and how he was trying to find that gem and keep it out of their hands because immortal killers seemed like a very bad thing.

Tantei-kun’s eyes had gone sharp with interest at the description of the snipers pursuing Kid, especially Snake.

“Your description of Snake sounds a lot like Vodka,” Tantei-kun admitted, when Kaito asked. “I’m trying to figure how likely it is that your snipers are connected to my organization.”

Kaito could only make a vague acknowledging sound. Snake wasn’t a type of alcohol as far as he knew, just an animal, On the other hand, the thought of _multiple_ gangs with the ability to pay, train, and supply snipers was horrifying. This wasn’t America, guns and ammunition were both very hard to procure.

A bit later, Tantei-kun tried to ask, "Kuroba-kun, are you certain-”

“Call me Kaito,” Kaito corrected him. “Anyone I’ve actually _invited_ to my house can call me Kaito. You count.”

“That sounds like people have visited that you haven’t invited,” Tantei-kun observed with a grin, effectively distracted.

Kaito grinned wickedly back. “Well, _certain_ classmates of mine insist on coming over and trying to prove _I’m_ Kid-sama. Can you imagine? The audacity! And I certainly didn’t invite them.”

Tantei-kun snorted at Kaito’s theatrics. “I can’t _imagine_ why someone might suspect you of being Kid,” he drawled sarcastically.

“Probably because I’m his biggest fan,” Kaito suggested, pretending to take Tantei-kun literally. “I’m in the crowd at _all_ the heists to cheer him on.”

“I’m sure you are,” Tantei-kun agreed drily.

“You can call me Shinichi,” Tantei-kun invited him after a quiet moment. “Not like it’s going to get me murdered at this point, unless Gin somehow remembers me, and it’s nice to hear my name again. My real name.”

“Even Jii-chan didn’t remember you,” Kaito pointed out. “I don’t know why I’m exempt but I’m sure even _if_ Gin remembers you, enough people around him don’t believe you exist that he would at least be deterred in hunting you down.”

“Thanks, Kaito-kun,” Shinichi drawled, sarcastic again, though a smirk hinted at his good humor. “Solve one of my existential crises with another existential crisis.”

“I live to serve,” Kaito replied with an obnoxious, exaggerated grin. Shinichi just rolled his eyes, failing to hide his own grin in return.

Throughout the rest of the day, they worked on short term and long term plans, for Shinichi to investigate what had happened to him and to investigate Kid’s unfriendly fans, and for Shinichi to not die of boredom (or anxiety) during the school days. They agreed that he'd tag along to school and, at least for now, sit in Hakuba's empty desk. They couldn't talk, to avoid Kaito drawing suspicion or concern from his classmates, but Shinichi could be reassured by Kaito's body language that he could still be seen

As the day went on, Shinichi’s separation anxiety - for there was nothing else to call it, though neither of them addressed it directly - eased with the additional reassurance that Kaito still remembered him after each temporary separation, whether for one of them to use the toilet or when Kaito wandered into the kitchen and around the corner a few steps ahead of Shinichi.

Kaito thought Shinichi shouldn’t have to worry at all, considering Kaito still remembered him after sleeping overnight, these shorter times out of each other’s sight shouldn’t have a bigger effect. But he couldn’t judge. Anxiety was irrational and there was no ability to logic it away. Kaito’s own phobia - of... of something well known and commonly eaten - was even more illogical, and yet it interfered with his life. He couldn’t even think the word without getting chills. At least Shinichi’s anxiety was becoming manageable.

Sunday was a much-needed break, but on Monday, Kaito and ‘Conan’, with his glasses back on, had to return to school. Aoko joined them on their walk there, and Kaito knew if she could see Conan, she would have been cooing over him already, asking impossible questions about why Kaito had a child with him, but she was doing no such thing.

The entire walk to school, Kaito was barely paying attention to his fond bickering with Aoko. He was more focused on trying not to limp - his hips _really_ didn’t appreciate having carried a child-sized person down the side of a building 36 hours prior - and figuring out how to get a useful answer out of Akako, his only source of supernatural knowledge. They’d had their conflicts, yes, but she had given him warnings to help Kid, so presumably she liked him enough to help now. Still, he had never actually _sought_ her help before.

In the classroom, Kaito walked down a row between the desks, and vaulted over Hakuba’s to get to the row with his own, and to signal Shinichi which seat would be free. Neither of them wanted to find out what would happen if someone who couldn’t see or hear him tried to sit in the same space. Aoko just rolled her eyes at his antics, and Shinichi slid into the indicated seat, sending Kaito a grateful smile.

Kaito turned to the row on the other side of his desk. Fortunately the classmate he was looking for was also already in her seat. “Um, Koizumi-chan?” he asked, more politely than he had ever bothered to be to her.

She turned regally to look down her nose at him. “Kuroba-kun,” she answered.

“Do you know why...” he still hadn’t figured out how to phrase the question without sounding unhinged. “...why someone would...”

She frowned, and stared into his eyes so intensely it almost felt like she was looking through him.

“Surely you know, Kuroba-kun, that Ideals live longer than any who pursue them.” she stated, as cryptic as usual. She turned away, in a clear dismissal, and Kaito also turned forward. Shinichi was watching him nervously, and Kaito grinned back, the most he could do to acknowledge his rival at the moment.

He held Shinichi’s gaze, but his mind was whirling somewhere far away as he turned over Akako’s words. Ideals live longer... and there had been that red glow in Shinichi’s eyes that Kaito had convinced himself he imagined... Could Shinichi have somehow-

“Ba-kaito!” Aoko loudly interrupted his train of thought. “Whatever' you're planning on doing to poor Hakuba-kun, don't!”

“I wasn’t planning anything,” Kaito protested, honestly for once, though he had no other explanation for staring so contemplatively at Hakuba’s ‘empty’ desk. Aoko looked unimpressed. “Really! I wasn’t! Now that you mention. it though...” he jeered, letting his tone say everything.

Aoko groaned at him. “Don’t!” she repeated.

Kaito just grinned in her face.

And then the teacher came in, failed to comment on their smallest attendee, and encouraged everyone else to sit down, so Aoko was forced to drop the subject. For now.

Kaito made sure to cause his usual amount of chaos in class, thoroughly distracting from the fact that he continued to glance frequently at Hakuba’s desk. Shinichi was fidgeting more than anyone else, even Kaito himself, but he seemed interested in the lessons, which wasn't surprising since he had been stuck in grade school for months now.

When classes were over for the day, Shinichi practically teleported to Kaito’s side. Kaito widened his stance subtly, pushing his leg closer to Shinichi in an acknowledgement no one else would recognize. Child-sized hands latched on to the fabric of his pants, right above the knee, and Kaito only smiled reassuringly, though not exactly in Shinichi’s direction.

Before they could leave the classroom, Akako called for him. “Kuroba-kun?”

Kaito was still desperate for any clarity she could offer, so he turned back. “What is it?” he asked, forcing patience into his voice.

“Secrecy is a danger to Justice,” she stated evenly. “But Justice can be supported by Peace, Truth, and Freedom.” He waited for more, but she brushed past him into the hall. That was it apparently

Well, Justice almost certainly represented Shinichi. And the rest... They could puzzle it out when they got home. Shinichi might understand better than he did.

“Well that was certainly a day,” Kaito commented, closing the front door behind them. “How’re you holding up?”

Shinichi shrugged with more nonchalance than his eyes held. “It was a long day of being treated like I don’t exist,” he commented tonelessly, exchanging his sneakers for the guest slippers that had become his.

Kaito grimaced in sympathy as they moved further into the house.

“What was with your cryptic classmate anyway?” Shinichi asked. “Does she always speak in riddles?”

“Koizumi-chan is a witch,” Kaito explained. “Literally. If anyone knows what’s going on, she does. But yes, when she’s trying to be ‘helpful,’ she always talks like that.” He made a face, and Shinichi snorted, which was approximately the reaction Kaito had been going for. “I recommend never getting on her bad side,” Kaito added, which was all he intended to say about their previous clashes. “Would you help me figure out what she meant? Justice is you, I figure.”

Shinichi shrugged, again feining nonchalance, but his eyes lit up at the puzzle. “I would express more skepticism at the idea of witchcraft, but...”

“Yeah,” Kaito agreed, thinking of how unusual the entire situation was.

“What did she say? ‘Ideals live longer than those who pursue them,’ and ‘Secrecy is a danger to Justice’?” Shinichi asked, diving right in.

“And, ‘Justice can be supported by Peace, Truth, and Freedom',” Kaito agreed. “I figure Justice is you.”

“I definitely need the support,” Shinichi observed with a humorless chuckle. “Does that make Peace, Truth, and Freedom other people?”

Kaito considered it. “Probably. Secrecy doesn't seem like an 'ideal' to me either,” he agreed, noting the omission. “Possibly a comment on how people not knowing you is causing trouble?” Shinichi made a face at the situation. “She _has_ called me a dove before, but I don't know if that makes me Peace. Especially with my night job...” it still felt weird to mention that to anyone besides Jii, but it wasn’t like Shinichi could tell anyone.

Shinichi nodded thoughtfully. “You said you were hoping to get those murderers caught so they can’t hurt anyone else,” he remembered. “Is that not wishing for peace in others’ lives?”

Well he wasn’t wrong, though Kaito wouldn’t have put it that way himself. “I guess?” he agreed, reluctantly. “Wait, she said Ideals live longer than... humans I guess. If I get a name like Peace, does that mean I’m going to go through whatever you’re going through?” he realized with some alarm. What if that was why he could still see Shinichi? What if-

They were interrupted by a phone ringing. Kaito glanced at the house phone, which was dark, and pulled out his cell phone, which also wasn’t it, and turned his gaze slowly to Shinichi, who had pulled his phone out of his pocket, looking baffled, and tentatively hopeful. He flipped it open, quickly hitting the buttons for answer and speaker. “Hattori?” he asked, in a voice wavering between hope and fear, much like the one he had greeted Kaito with the other night. He fixed Kaito with a pleading look, that Kaito interpreted as a request to repeat everything in his voice, if this Hattori couldn’t hear him. Kaito nodded, hoping he was reading that request right.

“Oi, Kudou!” the voice on the other end practically-shouted. “Care to tell me why a classmate just called _me_ the Heisei Holmes? He’s acting like you don’t exist, but _obviously_ you’re my rival and I don’t understand why he’s acting otherwise. Don’t tell me you’re trying to erase your presence from the entire internet and somehow tried to dump that silly title onto me!” Strong Osakan accent... Kaito had seen another high-school detective tagging along with ‘Conan’ sometimes, and the accent matched. Perhaps Truth was another detective. If they were all people, that made as much sense as anything else.

“Hattori, can you hear me?” Shinichi asked, hope shining in his eyes.

“Yeah, Kudou, I can hear you,” Hattori answered, impatiently. “What's wrong? It's not like you not to tease me about Holmes.”

“It’s... I’d have to explain in person,” Shinichi hedged. “No!” he interrupted Hattori’s immediate declaration that he would catch the next train to Tokyo. “No, I’ll come to you. It’s... easier that way.”

“If you say so, Kudou,” Hattori grumbled. “When should I expect you?”

Shinichi glanced at Kaito, who shrugged and nodded. If Hattori was willing to catch the next train to Tokyo, presumably Shinichi was willing to do something similar. The round trip to Osaka would take up their entire evening, but Kaito found himself oddly committed to helping his rival, so he didn’t really mind.

“I’ll... we’ll be there tonight. I’ll catch the next train to Osaka,” Shinichi promised, with another questioning glance at Kaito. Kaito smiled reassuringly. He had guessed exactly right.

“‘We’?” Hattori asked.

“Yeah, I’m bringing...” Shinichi met Kaito’s eyes, “a friend,” he explained, offering a small smile. Kaito beamed back. He’d thought - well, he’d hoped - that Shinichi considered him a friend too. “I’ll explain everything when we get there.”

“You’d better,” Hattori insisted. “I’ll meet you at the train station.”

“I’ll text you as soon as we’re on the train, so you know which one,” Shinichi promised.

It didn’t take long to get to the train station, or to get settled on an afternoon train to Osaka. Conan had easily vaulted over the ticket barrier, taking advantage of how little attention anyone would pay him. Kaito would have absolutely done the same if he were in costume, but today, he couldn’t. _Kaito_ could still be seen, after all, by cameras if nothing else. Shinichi had offered to pay for Kaito’s ticket, since it was Shinichi’s friend they were visiting, but Kaito insisted on paying for his own. They settled into seats in a quiet area of the train, and at Shinichi’s suggestion, Kaito tucked a headphone into one ear, the cord disappearing into his pocket, so anyone who caught him having a “one-sided” conversation would assume he was on the phone. He would seem rude, but that was better than seeming crazy.

“What are you planning on telling your friend?” Kaito asked, as the train pulled out of the station.

“I was planning to tell him the truth,” Shinichi admitted. “You took it well enough, and he already knows about...” he gestured to himself, to his whole miniature body. “...me.” Shinichi paused before musing, “I can’t believe I didn’t call him first.”

“At least he called you,” Kaito observed, and Shinichi’s obvious relaxation made a little of the tension ease from Kaito’s own shoulders.

“Yeah,” Shinichi agreed. “At least he called me.”

After another quiet moment, Shinichi asked. “What if...”

Kaito glanced his direction, and made what he hoped was an appropriately encouraging expression.

“What if Hattori can’t see me either?” Shinichi asked. “What if him hearing me on the phone was a fluke?”

“I’ll still be here,” Kaito promised, surprising himself with his own certainty.

Shinichi flashed a tight smile his direction. “Thank you,” he said, far more sincerely than Kaito was comfortable with.

“And if your friend can’t see you in person, maybe your other friends could still hear you via phone call?” Kaito suggested, trying to lighten the mood.

Shinichi pondered that for a moment. “They would still have to remember me, to care enough to pick up my calls,” he decided in a too-even tone that must be his own poker face. “But... Hattori at least _remembers_ me,” he realized with a grin.

Kaito smiled reassuringly back.

They settled into silence again, until Kaito had a realization, and pulled out a comb to flatten his hair.

“What are you doing?” Shinichi asked, recognizing after only a few days that it wasn’t a part of Kaito’s usual grooming rituals.

“Well we’re visiting one of your fellows,” a detective, specifically. Kaito spoke vaguely, keenly aware that they were still in close quarters with too many other people to speak freely. “And I figure it’s easier if I show up looking familiar, skip introductions as it were.”

“You want to show up as me, not give away your civilian identity,” Shinichi caught on easily. “That’s fine I guess. Hattori is _always_ calling me Kudou at inconvenient times.

Kaito grinned at the permission, and finished fixing his hair. He didn’t understand how Shinichi’s hair was so perfect at all times, even immediately after he woke up in the mornings. It took effort to make his hair look the same. To be fair, he also had to put in effort to adjust his posture and his gait to make a convincing Kudou Shinichi, and masks were actually more effort, but it was the principle of the thing. Why should Kaito have to put effort into making his hair look like that when Shinichi didn’t even think about it?

After a train ride that felt like it took forever, and no time at all - no doubt Hakuba would be able to tell them the exact amount of time they’d been on the train, but Hakuba wasn’t here - they were squealing into the Osaka station. Shinichi was all but shaking in anxiety. Kaito kept a careful eye on him, but Shinichi had made it obvious that he wasn’t interested in the hovering sort of concern, so Kaito kept his mouth shut. He hoped, for Shinichi’s sake, that Hattori’s phone call was the good sign they thought it was.

Kaito stayed right behind Shinichi, if a little too close, but the evening commuters were jostling around them, and he didn’t want to find out if people’s inability to see Shinichi would also prevent them from trampling his littlest rival. Shinichi didn’t complain, so he probably understood.

As they neared the exit and the crowd eased, Kaito eased back a bit, to give Shinichi space. Almost immediately, Shinichi shot an anxious glance back at him. Ah. There was his separation anxiety again, probably triggered by all the other anxieties associated with visiting his friend. Kaito stepped sideways and forward, so he was only half a step behind Shinichi: easy to track in his peripheral vision, but just enough behind that Kaito was following instead of leading. Shinichi was the one who knew where they were going after all.

Outside the exit, Kaito recognized the dark skinned teenager waiting for them. Hattori didn’t make himself present at heists often, but he was a terror when he joined forces with Shinichi at one.

Hattori’s face was full of undisguised, wide-eyed surprise as they approached, eyes darting back and forth between Kaito and Shinichi so dramatically it was almost funny.  
“Is there somewhere private we can talk?” Shinichi asked without preamble when they were close enough that he wouldn’t have to shout.

Hattori tore his questioning gaze away from Kaito and fixed Shinichi with the curious stare instead. “Yeah, actually, my place should be empty. Dad’s working late, and Mom’s visiting her aunt this week.” He hesitated, giving Kaito another suspicious once-over. “Is this your ‘friend’ then?”

“Yes,” Shinichi answered, tone accepting no questions nor arguments, though it looked like Hattori very much wanted to ask questions.

“C’mon, then,” Hattori said instead, and Kaito marveled at the level of trust there. Aoko wouldn’t take him at his word like that. Hakuba certainly wouldn’t. Akako... well, Kaito wasn’t sure she counted as a _friend_. Terrifying acquaintance, certainly.

Hattori flagged a taxi and gave an address. When the driver confirmed he knew how to get there, they all piled into the back.

Hattori continued watching Kaito warily as they drove, and Kaito pretended not to notice, continuing to keep an eye on Shinichi as well as he could. Just quick glances so he wouldn’t be staring. When Hattori opened his mouth to ask a question, Kaito just shook his head in warning. Hattori scowled and settled back in his seat. He shot a look at Conan, who held a finger up to his lips, a well-recognized symbol for silence.

As they drove, Kaito failed to keep his thoughts from wandering to the austere. Now that Shinichi had a better friend around, someone he’d known longer than Kaito, someone he’d certainly _trusted_ longer than Kaito, would he continue to respect Kaito’s secrets? Kaito had rewarded Shinichi’s openness with his own, especially with the now-flimsy reassurance that he couldn’t tell anyone the truths Kaito had shared, but with a fellow _detective_ , would their developing friendship be solid enough to protect him?

And yet, even in Hattori’s presence, Kaito caught Shinichi glancing his way occasionally, as though reassuring himself Kaito was still there. He still couldn’t abandon his rival - his friend - in such a difficult situation, even if Hattori now made two people that could see and hear Shinichi.

"You two have a nice day," the driver said politely as they all climbed out of the car at the Hattori estate.

“Thank you,” Kaito called back over his shoulder, a little louder than he might otherwise, effectively covering up Hattori’s bewildered question.

As soon as the front door closed behind them, Hattori spun to face them, eyes dancing between their faces as though he couldn’t decide who to focus on. “Okay, Spill. What the hell is going on? You’ve been weird all day, Kudou.” He directed this directly to Shinichi.

Shinichi sighed, sounding more amused than frustrated. “It’s good to see you too, Hattori.”

“And a good thing I already know his name’s Kudou,” Kaito said pointedly, stepping up out of the genkan and ignoring the guest slippers Hattori had belatedly offered him.

Hattori scowled at him. “Who’re you?”

Kaito glanced in Shinichi’s direction, to see if he would answer that. They had talked around introducing him as Kid, but he still didn’t want to find themselves answering simultaneously with his name and his title.

“I’m Kaitou Kid,” Kaito answered, when it was obvious Shinichi wasn’t going to interrupt. “And I’m going to trust that Kudou-kun’s agreement not to arrest me during this social visit is enough to keep you from trying, too.”

Shinichi rolled his eyes. “Don’t worry about it, Hattori. Kid has been a lifesaver in the weirdest few days of my life. C’mon.” He led the way to a sitting room. Kaito supposed he had visited before.

Once they were all settled on couches, Shinichi dove into his explanation without hesitation. “No one but Kid - and now you - can see me,” he explained. “They can’t hear me either. If I shout in people’s faces, they don’t even blink. Sonoko-chan asked why the futon was out, and as I pointed out that I sleep on it, Ran just... Ran-chan talked right over me to claim she didn't know. While I was right there!”

His voice broke again, and Kaito tactfully looked away, turning instead to Hattori, who looked as wide-eyed and confused as Kaito had felt the other night, hearing the same tale.

“He was shouting in the officers’ faces that Kid was right next to them, and no one so much as glanced in my direction. Or his,” Kaito offered.

Hattori switched to frowning contemplatively, but he seemed to believe them.

“If people are forgetting you... Why haven’t I?” Hattori mused. “What’s special about me and Kid?”

“Maybe because we’re all the same age?” Shinichi speculated. Kaito shot him a _look_ , and Shinichi cringed in silent apology. Hattori now had one more fact about the Kaitou Kid, and he was a competent detective that was (still) well-recognized enough to be listened to.

Hattori, tactfully, didn’t use that fact as an excuse to start interrogating Kaiito.

“According to my most annoying classmate, it’s because we represent Ideals,” Kaito answered, before Hattori could decide to interrogate him anyway. He didn’t have to fudge ‘classmate’ to ‘friend’ considering Hattori now knew that he was also a high-schooler. “Shinichi-kun is Justice. You’re Truth, we assume. I’m either Peace or Freedom...“

“You don’t know?” Hattori asked.

“We haven’t found the fourth, and his classmate was terribly cryptic,” Shinichi explained. “If I’m lucky, that makes _three whole people_ who can see and hear me.” There was no mistaking the bitterness in his voice.

“Have you checked with the professor? Or your parents?” Hattori asked.

“Dad didn’t answer his phone but that’s typical,” Shinichi answered, overcompensating for his emotions by sounding toneless again. “The professor... I left school early when it was clear no one could see me, but I didn’t visit the professor because Haibara was out sick. Ayumi-chan _did_ ask about her absence, as well as my supposedly empty desk.”  
“Do you think Haibara-san is Freedom?” Hattori asked. ”She broke free of the organization before she found you.“

That was a detail Shinichi hadn’t mentioned, but Shinichi, surprisingly, had no tells drawing attention to Hattori’s reveal of a significant detail that Shinichi had likely omitted deliberately. Impressive. He appeared to consider that statement just as casually as it was suggested. “I _told_ you that you were Peace,” Shinichi finally said to Kaito, leaving Kaito and Hattori to read between the lines that he agreed with that hypothesis.

“Call her,” Kaito encouraged. “Quickest way to find out, right?”

Shinichi nodded, a fierce determination shining on his face again.

He pulled out his phone and dialed, putting the call on speaker before the first ring had finished sounding.

“Edogawa-kun?” Haibara asked as soon as she picked up. “What the hell sort of prank did you convince the class to play on me?”

“Let me guess, they got rid of my desk and no one asked about me during role,” Shinichi answered drily.

“Well yes, but when _I_ asked about you, everyone determinedly pretended they’d never heard of you. Even the Detective Boys.” Shinichi looked disappointed but not surprised. “I don’t know how you got Kobayashi-sensei in on it too, but I don’t appreciate having my sense of reality questioned.”

“You know Ayumi-chan has far too many tells to hold on to a bluff like that,” Shinichi commented, tone still forcibly neutral. “Try being _me_. Saturday morning, everyone was asking if we were going to get a new student to sit at my supposedly empty desk.”

“You’re really not joking?” she asked.

“I promise I’m not,” Shinichi answered. “I wouldn’t joke about something so serious. Ask the professor if he knows me... if he knows _either_ of my names. I would love to be proven wrong.“

“Where are you now?” Haibara asked. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I’d rather see you in person, before I let the Detective Boys gaslight me into believing you were always just a figment of my imagination.”

“I think gaslighting requires malicious intent, not just remembering things differently,” Hattori mused aloud.

“That’s not the point!” Haibara argued. “Is that Hattori-kun?”

“Yes, I’m visiting him in Osaka,” Shinichi confirmed. You’re the third person who can hear me and remember me, and I’m going to hope the pattern holds that you can see me too.“

Who else?” she asked bluntly.

Shinichi made eye contact with Kaito, who shrugged his approval. What was one more person getting friendly with Kid?

“Er, Kaitou Kid was the first. And then Hattori-kun, and now you.” Shinichi listed off.

Haibara was silent for a minute. “Do I want to know how you figured that out?”

“Eh,” Shinichi said, shrugging even though Haibara couldn’t see him. “I showed up at his heist anyway. Kid was the only one who could see me.”

That was essentially true, while leaving out all of the emotional vulnerability. Kaito wasn’t surprised. Honestly, he was more surprised Shinichi had trusted him with it in the first place.

”Come over tonight, Edogawa-kun,“ Haibara instructed. ”Bring the others if you must. I’ll ask the professor about you once we’re off the phone.“

“We’re on our way,” Shinichi promised, and didn’t look offended when Haibara hung up on him almost immediately after.

They decided to walk back to the train station. They were only two blocks away when Shinichi froze mid-step, frowning at a shadow on the ground in front of him, then shuffled sideways so his own shadow wasn’t crossing it.

“Kudou?” Hattori asked, stopping nearly as abruptly and following Shinichi’s gaze to the shadow, before he sighed heavily and they both looked up to the source, squinting against the slanting afternoon sunlight.

Kaito also looked up, There was a trash bag hanging from a balcony of what looked like a hotel, but it was hanging oddly. Kaito couldn’t put a finger on what would cause it to fall into that shape. The ties on the bag were slowly, almost imperceptibly stretching. It didn’t take a detective to realize that whatever was in the bag was heavy.

As they watched, a gust of wind caught the bag, and it tore open, dropping something with a humanoid silhouette - it was hard to tell exactly with the sun behind it - that fell limply like a mannequin. Halfway down, the lower half of the trash bag got caught in the wind and fluttered loose, leaving just the mannequin to plummet to the ground.

“Shit.” Shinichi muttered, in a tone that discouraged Kaito’s hope that it really was just a mannequin falling. “Hattori, why is it when you and I are together they _literally_ fall out of the sky?” It sounded like a rhetorical question, and Hattori didn’t grace it with an answer.

The detectives exchanged a look as screams erupted from the same direction they were already watching. Hattori immediately started running in the direction of the screams.

Shinichi hesitated, glancing anxiously in Kaito’s direction. Kaito nodded, he would follow, and Shinichi took off in the same direction.

Kaito pulled a ball cap from one of his many hidden pockets, and put it on, brim low over his face to cast strategic shadows. Even if Shinichi had been forgotten by the masses, he still wasn’t taking changes on being mistaken for a detective at a crime scene. He followed a short way behind the actual detectives, jogging just fast enough to keep them in sight. His poker face covered most of his unease, but he still couldn’t coax his legs to run _towards_ what was likely a murder scene.

Kaito let himself blend into the gathering crowd, while Shinichi ducked the crime scene tape that was still being put up, running straight to the body to investigate, and Hattori had to take a few moments longer to identify himself as a detective and consultant, and show his ID to three different officers before they quit trying to keep him off the scene.

Hattori seemed unnerved at the proof that everyone else couldn’t see or hear Shinichi. They didn’t answer his questions, or yell at him to get out of the way, or comment on a child’s presence. Honestly, Kaito still found it a bit unnerving, and he had over a day of evidence that almost no one else could see Shinichi.

On the other hand, they seemed to hear Shinichi, at least subconsciously. No one answered his questions, but if Hattori didn’t immediately repeat them, another detective on site would ask the same thing within a few minutes. On one hand, that could be because detectives think alike, but the exact phrasing usually matched - except when Hattori would paraphrase - so that was a curious coincidence.

And then, while Hattori was upstairs investigating the room the body had dropped from, and the officer in charge turned to the suspects, mouth opening to say something, Shinichi had interrupted witih a sharp “don’t you _dare_ accuse someone innocent of murder,” and the officer had snapped his mouth shut again, looking thoughtful.

A few minutes later, when Hattori and some other officers had returned, and held a quick conference with their colleagues, sharing their photos and observations, the officer made an uninterrupted accusation, one that both Shinichi and Hattori looked satisfied by.

The accused suspect confessed, snarling angry details that filled in the gaps the officers hadn’t mentioned in their story.

As a detective, Shinichi already made sense as an enforcer of justice, but Kaito really understood, after seeing him on a crime scene, why Akako would have pegged Shinichi as Justice itself.

Hattori promised the officers he’d fill out all the appropriate paperwork and send it in to the office with his father the next day, and finally made his escape to rejoin Kaito and Shinichi.

“Come on,” Shinichi urged them. “Haibara is going to be irritable enough at having to wait on the train from Osaka.”

When they finally knocked on the door of the Professor’s house, it was already dark. But it was also only a short moment before another apparent grade schooler opened the door, scowling at all three of them in turn.

“Took you long enough,” Haibara grumbled, stepping back to welcome them in.

“Who is- Ah, Hattori-kun, who’s your friend?” Agasa asked, looking up from the couch.

“I’m Kudou Shinichi,” Kaito answered. He had taken his ball cap off on the train back to Tokyo and he, again, looked exactly like Shinichi _should_.

“It’s good to meet you, Kudou-kun,” Agasa replied, oblivious to the discomfort of the _four_ people standing in front of him, three of whom had originally met the professor through Shinichi himself. “Are you related to my neighbors?”

“Social time later. I invited them over for a reason,” Haibara interrupted, only a little bit harsh.

Agasa didn’t seem surprised at her manner. “Okay. Let me know if you need anything,”

“We will,” Haibara promised, leading the others out of the room and down into a basement lab.

“Kaitou Kid, I presume,” she asked blandly, once they were settled into a large room, with the door closed behind them.

“The one and only, little miss,” Kaito replied with false cheer, and a slight bow.

She nodded, unimpressed - tough crowd - and turned back to Shinichi. “Explain. Everything.”

He did, explaining events that seemed no saner the third time Kaito was hearing about them.

When he was done, he hesitated before telling her, “I’ve told Kid about _my_ interactions with the organization, but...”

“I’ll tell my own story, thanks,” Haibara answered primly. She gave Kaito a long, appraising glance, slightly more present than the one Akako had graced him with that morning, before cautiously explaining her own history with the organization, and just how much she had to fear being recognized by them.

“You made the poison originally,” Kaito observed, following a hunch he couldn’t explain. “Were there any unusual ingredients you were required to use in it? Anything that glowed unusual colors, perhaps?“

Shinichi shot him a curious glance, clearly following where that train of thought was leading.

She paused to think about it. “Now that you mention it, there was an odd chemical they always called EPMT,” she answered after a moment. “I couldn’t figure out what was supposed to be so special about it, but my mother always used it as a base. I once suggested replacing it with something else, but the higher-ups insisted I keep it. I used to work late at night too often, and I occasionally thought I saw it glowing. I chalked it up to a lack of sleep and made myself go to bed earlier, and when I was... better rested, I would resume working late again, until I started seeing it glow again. I thought it was weird how consistently I was imagining the color red from a clear liquid, but when I made sure to sleep through the day and come work with it at night, I couldn’t reproduce the effect no matter what I tried, so I concluded I had imagined it. But if you can predict that it was glowing...” she trailed off, looking expectantly at Kaito for his conclusion.

“Let me guess, you thought you were getting that fatigued about once a month,” Shinichi asked, before Kaito could.

Haibara gave him an odd look. “Not every month, but yes, it was roughly monthly,” she agreed tightly.

“And never on overcast nights,” Shinichi guessed.

Haibara’s suspicious glare evaporated into bafflement. “What?” She considered for a moment before admitting, “I never noticed the weather.”

Shinichi nodded absently, accepting the information. “You didn’t notice the weather, so you probably didn’t notice the cycle of the moon...”

“Kudou-kun, if you’re trying to ask for personal details, I’m _not_ sharing,” she snapped.

Shinichi looked baffled for a moment, before frantically backtracking, “no, of course not! I didn’t mean -”

“There are organized criminals after me - after _Kid_ \- who wanted my predecessor to steal for them a jewel associated with legends of immortality and _literal_ moonlight,” Kaito stepped in, before Shinichi could put his foot further into his mouth. “It was said to glow red in the light of the full moon.” He had already shared with Shinichi, and these people could keep Shinichi’s secrets... Plus it was potentially relevant.

Haibara gave him another appraising look, before evidently accepting his explanation without protest. “That would explain a lot,” she mused. “Vermouth always provided EPMT, with no explanation, and she seemed offended that I was trying to create a poison with it, despite the fact that I had been ordered to do so.”

“I knew it! I _knew_ Secrecy was another person,” Shinichi interrupted.

Kaito stared at him. Shinichi hadn’t said anything of the sort earlier.

“Your classmate said Secrecy is a danger to Justice,” he reminded Kaito, then turned to Haibara, who had evidently followed the train of thought while Kaito hadn’t.

“ _A secret makes a woman, woman_ ,” she quoted in English. Kaito still wasn’t quite following the conversation.

“We already know she’s older than she looks,” Shinichi mused. “Just like you and me, except she continues to look like an adult... Oi, Haibara, how certain are you that your parents were trying to create a poison?”

“They weren’t,” she answered easily. “Mom’s journals never said what their goal actually was, but when they produced a nearly-traceless poison instead, they were instructed to perfect it, and I took over that task. You don’t think-”

“They were trying to produce an immortality drug?” Shinichi finished her sentence. “I absolutely do think so.”

“People... talked about Vermouth in a weird way,” Haibara remembered. “Even Gin usually talked about her more in the abstract than as a person, and they were... Close. Or they let everyone believe they were. She encouraged people to talk around her, but I wonder... I wonder if she had been forgotten too, and only a few of us could see her and the rest operated on rumor.”

“You’ve known her for years, right?” Hattori mused. “I suppose that means you won’t forget Kudou either, and the rest of us probably won’t either.”

Well-hidden tension drained out of Shinichi’s frame at Hattori’s deduction, though everyone in the room was observant enough to notice. “Good,” he commented. “I don’t know what I would do if all of you forgot me too.”

“Never, Kudou, you’re too much of a pain in my ass for me to forget you,” Hattori teased him easily. Shinichi ducked the noogie aimed his way just as easily.

Kaito made eye contact with Haibara. If the key to immortality was in her poison, and this was a side effect, she would likely be forgotten too, eventually. She raised an eyebrow back at him, expression just shy of cocky, and firmly not accepting questions.

Okay, yeah, that was an obvious conclusion; she would have made it too. If she was bothered, she didn’t want to talk to him about it. Fair enough.

Kaito looked back at the detectives, who were still half-wrestling and laughing at each other. Shinichi looked anchored again. Kaito felt his own, private worry fading - the worry that he would forget Shinichi and inadvertently abandon his friend to a terrible fate.

Even if Kaito couldn’t be there - and both detectives clearly thought he could - Shinichi would have a support system. That would have to be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: _technically_ no standard archive warnings apply, but Shinichi is half-erased from reality in a way that he's not dead, but he's also not in (most) people's lives and they don't even know to mourn him, so it's possibly upsetting in a similar way to the "major character death" tag. Otherwise, the tags say everything. Existential crisis, off-screen murder and very skimmed over murder investigation. Possible fridge horror over "being completely forgotten by nearly everyone"
> 
> First person who recognizes where "EPMT" came from can request a custom one-shot from muggle ;) Comment here or message me on tumblr @muggle-writes (tyedye you can't guess but I already owe you that extended stolen book piece) Update: since I've given at least one person this hint in the comments, it's only fair to share here: consider what APTX is short for, and that PDRA might also have worked as a codename if certain people weren't worried about seeming too connected to certain legends
> 
> We had a great time dreaming up this story. Hope you enjoyed reading it just as much!


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